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拍品专文
Balthasar van der Ast was the pupil and brother-in-law of Ambrosius Bosschaert I, who, following his arrival in Middelburg in circa 1585, introduced the Flemish tradition of still-life painting into Dutch art. Having absorbed the influences of his master, van der Ast broadened Bosschaert’s pictorial repertoire to incorporate a more diverse range of objects, including a greater number and variety of shells and insects, as exemplified by the present painting.
A bouquet of three irises, a pair of roses and two snakeshead fritillaries with forget-me-nots in a blue and white vase of the Wanli period, named after the Ming Dynasty Emperor who ruled China from 1572 to 1620, fitted with gilt mounts sits between a beetle and two shells on a simple wooden ledge. Such a fragile and costly piece of porcelain would have been imported to the Netherlands by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), whose second largest chamber was in Middelburg, where van der Ast was born and lived until 1615. The artist employed a vase with comparable, though not identical, motifs in several further works datable to the same year as the present painting, including one last seen with Galerie De Jonckheere in 1994 (see S. Segal, ‘Still-life Painting in Middelburg’, Masters of Middelburg, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam, 1984, p. 53, fig. 20) and another dated 1622 in the P. & N. de Boer Foundation, Amsterdam.
As with so much in van der Ast’s work, the artist appears to have adopted this motif from his master, with paintings like the still life of circa 1619-20 formerly in the collection of Ann and Gordon Getty (sold Christie’s, New York, 18 October 2023, lot 84 for $529,200) likely serving as inspiration. Similarly, the use of the central iris at the top of the longitudinal axis and the dragonfly who deftly sits atop it recur in Bosschaert’s work, including in a painting formerly in the collection of Ferdinand Stuyck in Antwerp (see L.J. Bol, The Bosschaert Dynasty: Painters of flowers and fruit, Leigh-on-Sea, 1960, p. 61, no. 18, plate 12). However, the use of three different varieties of irises in one bouquet does not readily find parallels in the elder artist’s oeuvre and confirms the degree to which van der Ast mediated and expounded upon his master’s designs.
A bouquet of three irises, a pair of roses and two snakeshead fritillaries with forget-me-nots in a blue and white vase of the Wanli period, named after the Ming Dynasty Emperor who ruled China from 1572 to 1620, fitted with gilt mounts sits between a beetle and two shells on a simple wooden ledge. Such a fragile and costly piece of porcelain would have been imported to the Netherlands by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), whose second largest chamber was in Middelburg, where van der Ast was born and lived until 1615. The artist employed a vase with comparable, though not identical, motifs in several further works datable to the same year as the present painting, including one last seen with Galerie De Jonckheere in 1994 (see S. Segal, ‘Still-life Painting in Middelburg’, Masters of Middelburg, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam, 1984, p. 53, fig. 20) and another dated 1622 in the P. & N. de Boer Foundation, Amsterdam.
As with so much in van der Ast’s work, the artist appears to have adopted this motif from his master, with paintings like the still life of circa 1619-20 formerly in the collection of Ann and Gordon Getty (sold Christie’s, New York, 18 October 2023, lot 84 for $529,200) likely serving as inspiration. Similarly, the use of the central iris at the top of the longitudinal axis and the dragonfly who deftly sits atop it recur in Bosschaert’s work, including in a painting formerly in the collection of Ferdinand Stuyck in Antwerp (see L.J. Bol, The Bosschaert Dynasty: Painters of flowers and fruit, Leigh-on-Sea, 1960, p. 61, no. 18, plate 12). However, the use of three different varieties of irises in one bouquet does not readily find parallels in the elder artist’s oeuvre and confirms the degree to which van der Ast mediated and expounded upon his master’s designs.